and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



469 



gets a billet on some estate, well and good ; if 

 he fails to get one, the hotel-keeper consoles 

 himself with the reflection that any day he 

 himself may be in like case. One 



CANNOT ALWAYS RETURN HOSPITALITY RECEIVED, 

 CUTLET FOR CUTLET ; 



but one can at least hope for the turn of the 

 wheel which will convert one from a borrower 

 into a contributor to the common fund of hos- 

 pitality out of which each may benefit in case 

 of need. But prices are high in S. Thome— 

 where eggs cost three pence apiece and a hand- 

 ful of beans in their shells is not to be had 

 under five-pence, it is easy to understand that a 

 hotel bill for a couple of months' residence, 

 regarded as a debt of honour by the newly- 

 joined planter's assistant, may prove a very 

 heavy tax on his first year's salary. The supply 

 of this class of labour being so far in excess 

 of the demand, proprietors rarely if ever 

 covenant with assistants from Lisbon, but 

 engage immigrants from a waiting list of 

 candidates on the spot, whose return 

 passages to Portugal in case > of dismissal or 

 resignation are consequently their own affair. 

 The man, who is rash enough to bring a wife and 

 family out with him, is, of course, severely handi- 

 capped, as the 



PLANTATION HAS TO RATION EVERY EMPLOYEE, 



white or black, and a wife and children mean 

 so much more food and wine out of store. 

 Proprietors, as a rule, are liberal in their issues, 

 but there is reason in all things ; and the single 

 man, who can content himself with a mulatto or 

 Cabo-Verdean mistress already on the strength 

 of the labour establishment, is naturally prefer- 

 able to the married man with white children 

 who, in that intensely malarious climate, will be 

 oftener in hospital than out of it until in the end 

 they go to swell the death-rate, of the roga. 



The most unpromising emigrants make their 

 way out, and it is marvellous to find among the 

 successful and satisfactory assistants men who 

 have begun life as barbers, hotel waiters, and 

 booking clerks, not to mention persons of much 

 higher walks in life quite unconnected with 

 agriculture. But whatever his adaptability, the 

 islands are no place for the family man. I am 

 told that with good feeding and avoidance of 

 overwork it is possible to put in five or six 

 years' residence at a stretch, even in the 

 town of S. Thome and there is a tradition 

 of a European who did nine years ir> St. Anto- 

 nio de Principe (one of the dismallest spots 

 on earth) and is still alivo and well. But such 

 cases are exceptional, and it does not require 

 much reading between the lines to set) what 

 may be the case of the poor European, housed in 

 some corrugated-iron shed in the town, who has 

 to tramp some twenty miles a day from rogt to 

 roga in search of work, or laden with a hawker's 

 pack of goods for sale, dependent on chance for 

 his mid-day meal. As often as not he collapses 

 with fever at the gates of the plantation and has 

 to be helped up to the hospital of the estate (I 

 found a poor photographer to whom this had 

 happened, in one of the hospitals i visited), 

 leaving wife and children to shiver with ague 

 and starve on chance charity in town. The 

 Government of the colony, of course, repatriated 



in such cases, but there being no official curator 

 for ivhites, the mischief may be irremediable 

 before it comes to the knowledge of competent 

 authority. The difficulty, however, is not one 

 peculiar to these islands -our own Australian 

 and Canadian colonies, xiot to mention tho 

 Unites States, have had to deal with it, and that 

 in a manner more drastic than sympathetic. 



It has been suggested that the only real sla- 

 very to be found in tho islands is here. But 

 whether the case in hand be that of the white or 

 the black, the use of the tevm slavery is quite 

 unjustifiable. However, it has been freely used 

 throughout the controversy ; and, making the 

 large concession that it has been used in good 

 faith, let us now see what exactly there is in it. 

 As a rule where there is smoke it is safe to pre- 

 sume the existence of some fire. The 



MAIN SOURCES OF COLOURED LABOUR FOR 

 THE IRLANDS 



are at present four: — (i)the islands of Cape Verde 

 to theNorth-west; (ii) the islands of S. Thome and 

 Principe themselves (as regards the moleques or 

 children of imported servigaes, born on the 

 islands); (iii) the province of Angola on the 

 main land to the South-east ; and (iv) the pro- 

 vince of Mozambique on the east coast of Africa; 

 all four being Portuguese possessions. I will 

 begin with the first and fourth of these sources, 

 reserving the second and {third for special dis- 

 cussion at the close of my letter 



CAPE VERDE ISLANDERS. 



The Cape Verde islanders are a hardworking 

 and intelligent people, more or less Euro- 

 peanised in mode of living, often with a certain 

 infusion of white blood in their veins. All can 

 speak Portuguese, and many can read and white 

 it as well. Men and women engage themselves 

 and are repatriated if they do not re-engage for 

 a further period. But they are not looked on 

 as a very desirable class of immigrant, the men 

 having a bad reputation &s faguistas— too handy 

 with the knife in their quarrels, or when drunk, 

 unoffending negro women or children who 

 happen to cross their path being as often as not 

 their victims. Their women do not take very 

 kindly to purely agricultural tasks, but make 

 good housekeepers, in which capacity they fre- 

 quently enter the households of the assistants 

 at the dependencias, an arrangement approved 

 by the management of the estate, and rightly 

 so, for it tends to minimise regrettable inci- 

 dents between white overseers and black women, 

 bad alike for discipline and for the reputation 

 of the white man. 



THE MOCAMBIQUE NEGRO. 



The Mozambique negro is a labourer made of 

 far better stuff than the Angolan, whose case I 

 am coming to. He and the moleque of the is- 

 lands may be regarded as occupying an inter- 

 mediate place between the other two groups. 

 His recruitment dates from quite recent times, 

 but so far the experiment has beeu a decided 

 success. But there are breakers ahead in this 

 quarter. Apart from the heavy cost of transit 

 from the opposite coast and of spooial clothing 

 and bedding against the rounding of tho Capo 

 (it is those men who get themselves up as Royal 

 Dublin Fusiliers and Midland Railway Ticket 



